Friday, September 23, 2005
President's Cup - my biggest gig yet!
Yesterday, the City of Alexandria Pipes and Drums played for the opening ceremony for the PGA President's Cup golf tournament.
I arrived at the band's meeting point in Manassas, VA (the western suburbs of DC) at 6:50 AM, 10 minutes before our bus was to depart for the golf course. I threw on my kilt and shirt, tossed the rest of my uniform and my pipes into a bag, and we headed over, and I finished getting dressed in the bus. At this point, we were missing two drummers (including the drum sgt.) and a piper. We arrived, and they had set up a breakfast area for the various bands in the golf cart garage. During breakfast, the two missing drummers arrived, and we walked through our drill a couple of times, and then did a lot of waiting around, and finally about 9:30 we went off to a secluded area near one of the club houses, and we warmed up. We lined up behind former U.S. Presidents George H.W. Bush and William J. Clinton, who both turned around and waved to us, and waited to go up.
I just missed being in the picture, I'm a couple feet to the left of the Dick Hunter, who can barely be seen in the uppermost left corner.
They had the fife and drum band play while Dateline NBC's Stone Phillips introduced of all the PGA mucky-mucks and the team captains from previous years, and the like.
Then, at 10:14, Bush and Clinton, honorary chairs of the tournament, stepped off toward the stage, and a few seconds later, we did, struck in when they were a few feet ahead of us, followed by the golfers. We played our 3/4 set, Green Hills of Tyrol/Castle Dangerous. We formed up in front of the stage, continued to play for a few more minutes, cut off, stood at attention through about 8 national anthems, then stepped off to a tap and marched away, the fife & drum corps following behind us.
Apparently this was all broadcast on TNT, and I'm going to be trying to track down a tape.
When we were in front of the stage, we were just a few feet from the golfers' wives, who were in the front row of the VIP seats. Not only were they all dressed the same (black shirts & slacks, gold sweater tied around their necks, black straw brim hat, sunglasses), but they all looked the same, with few exceptions. All beautiful, blonde (or dyed that way!), long straight hair, same basic facial features. It was like they'd come from a cloning factory.
We retired to our staging area until the opening ceremonies ended, and all the bands loaded back up on busses and headed back to our rendezvous points. When we got out, we discovered that some news and camera people had flown out from mainland China to do a documentary on the descendants of this one Chinese emigre, and our tenor drummer, Conrad Wong, was one of the descendants. So they asked us to perform a set for them, which we happily did. So not only did I make it on national TV, I will be on Chinese state TV as well!
About half the band headed to a gigantic lunch at a Chinese restaurant near my house afterwards, where the proprietor apparently recognized us from the TNT broadcast!
I arrived at the band's meeting point in Manassas, VA (the western suburbs of DC) at 6:50 AM, 10 minutes before our bus was to depart for the golf course. I threw on my kilt and shirt, tossed the rest of my uniform and my pipes into a bag, and we headed over, and I finished getting dressed in the bus. At this point, we were missing two drummers (including the drum sgt.) and a piper. We arrived, and they had set up a breakfast area for the various bands in the golf cart garage. During breakfast, the two missing drummers arrived, and we walked through our drill a couple of times, and then did a lot of waiting around, and finally about 9:30 we went off to a secluded area near one of the club houses, and we warmed up. We lined up behind former U.S. Presidents George H.W. Bush and William J. Clinton, who both turned around and waved to us, and waited to go up.
I just missed being in the picture, I'm a couple feet to the left of the Dick Hunter, who can barely be seen in the uppermost left corner.
They had the fife and drum band play while Dateline NBC's Stone Phillips introduced of all the PGA mucky-mucks and the team captains from previous years, and the like.
Then, at 10:14, Bush and Clinton, honorary chairs of the tournament, stepped off toward the stage, and a few seconds later, we did, struck in when they were a few feet ahead of us, followed by the golfers. We played our 3/4 set, Green Hills of Tyrol/Castle Dangerous. We formed up in front of the stage, continued to play for a few more minutes, cut off, stood at attention through about 8 national anthems, then stepped off to a tap and marched away, the fife & drum corps following behind us.
Apparently this was all broadcast on TNT, and I'm going to be trying to track down a tape.
When we were in front of the stage, we were just a few feet from the golfers' wives, who were in the front row of the VIP seats. Not only were they all dressed the same (black shirts & slacks, gold sweater tied around their necks, black straw brim hat, sunglasses), but they all looked the same, with few exceptions. All beautiful, blonde (or dyed that way!), long straight hair, same basic facial features. It was like they'd come from a cloning factory.
We retired to our staging area until the opening ceremonies ended, and all the bands loaded back up on busses and headed back to our rendezvous points. When we got out, we discovered that some news and camera people had flown out from mainland China to do a documentary on the descendants of this one Chinese emigre, and our tenor drummer, Conrad Wong, was one of the descendants. So they asked us to perform a set for them, which we happily did. So not only did I make it on national TV, I will be on Chinese state TV as well!
About half the band headed to a gigantic lunch at a Chinese restaurant near my house afterwards, where the proprietor apparently recognized us from the TNT broadcast!
# posted by Peter @ 9:57 AM 
